Getting inside the punters' mind

With many betting brands investing significant marketing budgets to capture consumer attention, in some cases reinforced by high street presence, the online market remains cluttered and fiercely competitive. Becoming the first choice for betting is easier said than done, especially as online bettors are particularly influenced by short-term odds and offers.

IPA has shown that brands should aim for fame in their advertising, through a combination of stand-out creativity, emotional resonance and salient branding. However, recent thinking from the likes of Professor Byron Sharp and Dr. Stephen Holden has begun to show the more deep-rooted, underlying ways that brands get stuck in people’s heads.

To fully understand what brings particular brands to mind for consumers when they are looking to place a bet, we recently pioneered Headspace – a research tool based on the latest marketing science. Surveying 500 football bettors who had all bet online at least once in the previous month, we discovered which mental cues brands should tap into to become ‘stickier’ and steal headspace.

The cues that made consumers think of online betting were largely needs-based, e.g. the main reason people bet is to enhance the excitement of match day – either live or on TV.

However, before thinking about activating specific cues, brands need to overcome the indifference consumers feel towards the category as a whole. Consumers typically love the thrill of betting but this doesn’t extend to the brands, as evidenced by bettors’ relatively high levels of promiscuity.

Indeed, Headspace showed that all brands – including the likes of Paddy Power, Coral and Ladbrokes – have little sway with consumers and consequently aren’t connected to the majority of situations and needs that make consumers think of placing a bet.

Ask not what your brand evokes, ask what evokes your brand

The problem is that brands are too focused on what attributes their brand evokes for people, rather than what needs and situations could evoke their brand.

By building frequent links to the cues, betting brands can reinforce their position in consumers’ minds to grow. The Headspace data shows that the best way to do this is through saliency-orientated creative campaign ideas that fit into bettors’ culture.

For example, Bet365’s Cash Out campaign with Ray Winston may not be the most innovative creative concept, but its clear consistent style has helped the brand punch noticeably above its weight in terms of headspace. Conversely, outright showmanship and irreverence were found to be less effective in the short-term.

Of course, there are always exceptions – in this case it’s Paddy Power, who are renowned for taking a more controversial humour-led approach to campaigns. Its stable tactics and PR prowess have proved more successful than others in generating fame. But their extreme irreverence does increase the likelihood of a consumer rejecting them – with a number of consumers saying they would shy away from the brand because it is too loud in its messaging.

Be emotive to drive long-term gains

The online betting category suffers from being seen as too sales-orientated, with a plethora of ever-changing offers that can often stretch the truth. From a creative perspective, many brands are overly focused on the short-term gains of rational persuasion. However, this approach doesn’t help brands to pilot the autopilot in people’s minds.

Brands need to land emotive connections with consumers, but, despite excitement and enjoyment sitting at the heart of many of the leading category cues, all brands struggled to land the expected level of associations with them.

Headspace shows that there’s a sizable opportunity for all online betting brands, including the leaders, to make their marketing stickier in peoples’ minds. As ever, this will undoubtedly involve highly creative communications, but as we have learnt, these should also be grounded in some of the principles of the new wave of marketing theory if they are going to improve their odds of being truly effective.